Most internet users will agree that SEO has become a concern. Just about any search returns half a dozen sites trying to sell you something. If you’re looking to buy, that’s fine. But the search for information is becoming difficult.

The process of SEO, or search engine optimization, involves modifying your website in about 30 different categories to make it more “search engine friendly.” The most commonly targeted search engine is Google, but Yahoo and MSN are close in second and third. This makes perfect sense. If you want more sales, get more traffic. If you want more traffic, rank higher on Google. The “top Google ranking” marketing advantage can turn nerds into millionaires overnight. So what’s wrong with getting a marketing edge?

Let me sketch an example from my senior philosophy class, loosely based on John Nash’s ‘Game Theory’:

“Consider the oceans and the fish in them. Imagine that we (or in this case, website owners) are all fishermen. If we all agree to take our own share through legitimate means and rely only on our own abilities to fish, then we can all feed our families and maybe sell a few more for a profit. However, if we use some kind of illegitimate means to catch more fish, we will gain an unfair advantage. If there is no threat of punishment, there is only the threat of extinction of the fish. But as long as only one or two cheat, they get a bigger share of the fish and get fatter than the rest.“

Now, everyone will start to notice. If there is no law enforcement agency in our small town (and there are almost none on the Internet), then nothing prevents the unscrupulous from doing whatever it takes to attract all the fish. Then everyone starts doing it, using the argument: “If I don’t, my family will starve.” This is, as far as game theory is concerned, perfectly legitimate. To sum up:

If everyone cheats to gain an unfair advantage, then you are creating yourself an unfair disadvantage by not cheating.

I would like to draw your attention to the information of Google for webmasters. The article is about what is accepted and what is not accepted regarding SEO. The guys at Google end the article by saying:

“It is not safe to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique is not included on this page that Google approves it. Webmasters who dedicate their energies to upholding the spirit of the basic principles listed above will provide a much better user experience, and subsequently will enjoy better rankings than those who spend their time searching for loopholes to exploit.”

Google’s corporate motto is “Don’t be evil.” They continually update their search bot algorithms, just like the other search engines, to filter out certain behaviors. Google doesn’t even consider keyword META tags (the string of keywords you sometimes see below a search result) as they are common sources of keyword spam.

If you run a website that isn’t trying to sell something, you still want a lot of traffic. Non-commercial websites without huge SEO budgets may be the sites you want to find, but your chances of doing so are slim to none. I live in South Africa and the most read blog around here is called 2OceansVibe. I don’t think they were submitted to a single search engine or organically linked. This blog receives thousands of hits a day from word of mouth alone. They have great content and are updated with an original post every day. Isn’t this the kind of traffic you’d rather have on your website?

Unfortunately, the good guys don’t finish last when it comes to SEO, but that’s what the good folks at Google are working on while their plan to dominate the planet is still being worked out. After reading your page, I began the process of removing excess keywords and tags from my blog, WriteNonsense. I am removing anything that is not 100% relevant in my list of tags and links, and I am increasing the frequency and quality of my posts.

SEO ethics poses a major dilemma for me, because I make a living writing SEO articles and helping websites get more traffic. I don’t do the SEO work myself, I’m a freelancer and I don’t have much control over my projects. Unfortunately, it’s gotten to the point that if we don’t cheat, we’ll be out. I optimized the keywords in the title of this article; after all, I want it to be read. However, because the accepted criteria for SEO practices are constantly being lowered, I believe (as does Google) that in the long run your website will be much more successful if:

• Your content is king — Have good quality content that is relevant to what you say your site is about.
• Links organically and reciprocally — Paid linkers always get caught. Spend some time every day telling people with related sites about your site, how it can help your visitors, and how they can help each other. Offer to put a link on their site if they put one on theirs.
• You design your site for visitors, not search engines. — It may sound strange, but any deceptive SEO technique will eventually kill it. If you use sneaky SEO tactics, you will have to constantly build or pay for links, but if you build a good quality website, the links will start appearing on their own, without you having to reciprocate.

After all, having goodwill and a respected presence on the Internet is something that cannot be bought or stolen, and the onlyThe type of visitor you want is the visitor who wants to be on your site. Remember that a college student telling his friends about your website is worth a lot more than hundreds of paid links or thousands of pages of keyword-rich, low-content articles. By all means, make your website more visible, but don’t make the internet more frustrating and expensive for the rest of us.